On exhibit: 'Some Assembly Required' at Albany Airport a must-see
Contemporary art in 'Some Assembly Required' expands definition of 'collage'
Published 2:10 pm, Friday, March 15, 2013
Collage is one of the more accessible art forms — recognizable to anyone who ever took an elementary school art class as simple cutting and pasting. It's actually relatively new — the term itself was only coined at the beginning of the last century and comes from the French word coller, meaning "to glue."
Each artist recontextualizes disparate images to create fictional narratives. Entitled "Comforts of Home," Bryan's series of panoramic digital prints combine multiple images to create surreal domestic scenes in which the outside and inside merge seamlessly to suggest that home is anything but comfortable.
Rich Remsberg culls footage that he comes across in his day job as an archival researcher for documentary films. "Free Translator" shares its name with its musical accompaniment, a song by a band called The Books, who ran an old song through multiple translation websites to arrive at completely new lyrics. Similarly, Remsberg combines archival photos as well as film, repeating images and splicing them into each other to tell a new story.
"Some Assembly Required"
When: Through Sept. 8; Gallery hours: Daily, 7 a.m.-11 p.m.
Where: Albany International Airport Gallery, third floor, before security
Admission: Free; airport short term parking: free for first half hour, $2 for second half hour, each additional half hour is $1.
Info: 242-2222; http://www.albanyairport.com/art_culture.php
Event: 7 p.m. Thursday: Todd Bartel presents "The History of Finding and Binding," tracing the lineage of composite imagery from the dawn of humanity to the birth of Modernism at the gallery.
For another film, "Terms of Surrender," the soundtrack is "Bonnie Nancy," by Phil Cunningham, an evocative instrumental piece with a melancholic feel. A narrative is built around footage of a zeppelin being launched and landing. Cut into this are scenes of people taking flight for brief moments before surrendering to gravity. The films have a mesmerizing quality. Watching them is like watching poetry.
Installed nicely with Remsberg's found footage is work by Laura Christensen who also pairs images never intended to go together. Antique photos are humorously embellished by seamlessly painted-in elements from historical works.
Michael Oatman also mines history, using vintage books and magazines as sources for large-scale collages. For him, collage is more about the gathering process than the assembly of the components, according to his statement. This process of looking for, collecting and inventorying images can take years. Each detailed assemblage tells a different tale. "Cravings" depicts spelunkers approaching a stalactite of fresh foods dripping onto a stalagmite of processed foods. Each tiny can or box has been meticulously cut and saved for this purpose. Oatman manages to comment on a subject like overconsumption and the environment in a way that's not preachy but humorous.
Andrea Hersh also takes a seemingly lighthearted approach to the subject of the environment. Brightly colored flowers painted on Mylar whose translucence reveals a monochromatic landfill below the surface. At first, the flowers, with hybridized names — "Gerberalymer" and "Daliazomethane" — seem cheerful but their anthropomorphism suggests something a little sinister, like genetically modified forms.
Using materials that typically end up in a landfill, Kirsten Hassenfeld's dazzling large piece, "Cabin Fever," has the effect of a three-dimensional crazy quilt. Much like quilters collect and combine scraps of discarded fabric, she uses wrapping paper and security envelopes. In the middle of a sort of geodesic dome form is a lamp made from the same material backlighting the intricate forms she's created, casting beautiful shadows.
China Marks makes work that uses the tools of quilting but not the patterning. Instead, she combines layers of fabric and thread and uses a sewing machine to draw on the fabric, creating staggering works with multiple non-linear narratives. No surface is left unstitched.
In contrast, Elana Herzog's textile pieces and Thomas Huber's layered drawings are more minimal and seem to be as much about drawing and painting as collage.
As usual, gallery director Sharon Bates and her assistant Kathy Greenwood have put together a meaty show with much for viewers to consider. I haven't even had a chance to mention Mary Lum's charming, spare architectural drawings made from colorful slivers of paper cut from old comic books or assemblages by Todd Bartel or Paul Forte, made of found objects that look like found objects themselves.
Then there's Niki Haynes and Anne Roecklein, who, like Oatman, each use cut photos to dramatically different effect. Rob O'Neil's ethereal, dreamy photos operate like photos of memories: layered and nonlinear.
Susan Spencer Crowe marries materials typically considered "girly" with welded steel to whimsically dismiss any attempt to equate femininity and weakness. The inclusion of her work, basically mixed media sculpture, accentuates the way in which she's pulling together and rearranging not just materials but concepts. It also signals that this show is expanding on old ideas of what "collage" means.
Amy Griffin is a freelance writer from Delmar.